Happy talk will not jump-start Obamacare

posted at 12:38 am on July 22, 2009 by Karl

Rep. Henry Waxman had to cancel the Energy and Commerce Committee markup of Obamacare for the second day running. Apparently, the happy talk coming from Waxman and Blue Dog Democrats opposed to the current bill was just that — happy talk. At least four polls this month show Pres. Obama failing to crack 50% approval on healthcare (and the AP-GfK poll barely reaches 50%).

In this gloomy climate for nanny statists, Nate Silver looks at Pres. Obama’s options. The first — whipping Democrats into submission — no doubt has the most appeal to the Left, which hopes to pass any two bills and dare moderate Democrats to filibuster a conference report on their party’s Holy Grail. However, this option may be over-committed to the premise that the failure of healthcare reform in 1994 was responsible for the GOP tsunami in that election. Democratic strategist Ed Kilgore notes that “it’s not entirely clear that the failure to enact health reform, as opposed to the unpopularity of the reforms being proposed (not to mention the timing of the health care debate, which in 1994 was on the very brink of the midterm elections), was the predominant factor.”

Silver still thinks trying to use the budget reconciliation process to pass healthcare reform is an option, but he underestimates the difficulties, which I have been noting for months.

Silver also suggests that Obama would have more political capital for this issue if the unemployment or stock market numbers were to suddenly improve dramatically — and the lapdog press went into full-on propaganda mode about it. But Silver admits that scenario is unlikely.

Finally, Silver doesn’t “see any particular reason why the Administration couldn’t press the reset button” and push for a bipartisan healthcare bill like the Wyden-Bennett bill. Silver is not looking very hard. In his heart, Pres. Obama favors a Canadian-style, single-payer system and probably believes he is making an enormous compromise already. Indeed, Obama keeps making arrogant comment after arrogant comment on healthcare to demonstrate his lack of interest in any compromise, let alone a bipartisan one.

So what we are likely to see at tonight’s prime-time presser is an option left off Silver’s menu: more happy talk. Indeed, Obama will have little else to offer, given the roadblocks still present in both chambers of Congress. And happy talk is not only unlikely to jump-start Obama’s proposed government takeover of our healthcare, but also likely to work against it. As Rich Lowry observes:

The problem for Obama is that now, in contrast to the campaign last year, his words can be checked against actual existing legislation. He can’t just make dubious, free-floating, all-things-to-all-people promises. Or he can, but they are belied by the legislation he’s touting. No matter how often he says that people will be allowed to keep the coverage they have now if they like it, or that the cost curve will be bent downward, it doesn’t change the fact that the Democratic legislation does neither of those things. It may be that the harder Obama pushes on this, the more he discredits himself.

Pres. Obama is about to embark on his tenth straight day of healthcare talk. Last week, the media covered healthcare more than at any time since January 2007 at the very least. So far, the polls are proving Lowry’s theory.

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